


Bang Babies got nothin' on the Ghost Kid

by anthrop



Series: Good Intentions Deadfic Extravaganza [4]
Category: Danny Phantom, Static Shock
Genre: Danny is uhhhhh OP to a ridiculous degree compared to typical superheroes, Gen, Parallel Universes, favoritism who?, what if we had some fun with that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:21:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27184444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anthrop/pseuds/anthrop
Summary: Phantom rolls his eyes, bouncing into the air. Gravity really doesn’t pay him any mind at all. How does he fly? Telekinesis? He does it like he’s so used to it the switch from standing to hovering is as natural as breathing. “Trust me, this city’s a walk in the park compared to what I deal with. Forgive me for seeing a chance to lend a hand to a couple ofkidswho clearly needed the help.”
Series: Good Intentions Deadfic Extravaganza [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1983268
Comments: 35
Kudos: 258
Collections: Good Intentions: Abandoned and Unfinished WIPs





	Bang Babies got nothin' on the Ghost Kid

**Author's Note:**

> More deadfic for the Good Intentions WIP Fest! There was a post circulating Tumblr once upon a time calling Danny out for having an absurd number of powers compared to your typical superhero, and around that time I was feeling nostalgic for Static Shock. So here we are with the fun kind of 'don't think about it too hard' crossover where I display a distinct lack of familiarity with the Static folks and let Danny have a good time for once.

The first time they see him, he’s just a black and white streak that nearly knocks them both out of the sky.

“Who _—what_ was that?” Static gapes once he’s regained his balance. Green data splashes across Gear’s visor, obscuring his own incredulous expression.

“No idea, but they just clocked 154 _miles_ per hour.”

“Well the speed limit here is only 45. Wanna pull ‘em over?”

Gear snorts. “If we can catch ‘em, sure.”

But whoever or whatever it was is long gone. After a week with no other sightings of ‘Flash Noir’ as they call the stranger, they let it go. Whatever it is will turn up, or it won’t. So long as no one’s getting hurt by it, it’s not really their problem, right?

* * *

The second time they see him is a week after that, and he’s hovering over the school roof just… watching. Other people see him too, and they all point and stare at the figure all in stark black and white, a teenage boy from the waist up and a ribbon of black from the waist down. 

Virgil and Richie share a mutual look of relief. They’d started to think they’d imagined him, never mind what Backpack had recorded. But when they look up at the roof again the kid is gone.

* * *

The third time they see him, he’s just a black speck barely glimpsed in the streaky post-rain evening sky. They only realize it’s him—and that he’s there at all—because Backpack catches him on the edge of its radar. He’s too high up, _way_ too high up. The air’s just too thin for normal people—or normal bang babies, for what that’s worth. They try to get as close as they can anyway, but he blinks out of existence long before they can make out any details.

* * *

The fourth time they see him, he’s got a minivan and a corolla balanced in each hand like gravity’s got better things to do than pay him any mind. He’s holding them by the _bumpers._ Gear promptly loses his mind trying to figure out the physics behind such a feat, so it’s only Static that sees the guy toss a grin their way as he sets the two vehicles down on a stretch of road aways away from the car accident he’d apparently saved them from joining.

The strange kid waves at the families he’d saved, then takes off before Static and Gear can get near him. Backpack helpfully informs Gear that this mysterious guy encroaching on their hero turf clocked 60 miles in two seconds flat.

* * *

The fifth time they see him, he’s waiting for them in the junkyard looking infuriatingly smug. Static and Gear gape, then jump for him. It’s been starting to feel like chasing a mirage, but this time the guy stays put.

“Relax,” he tells them with a laugh and a lazy grin. “I’m not a bad guy.”

This close they can see he’s not any older than they are. He’d look like any normal kid, except for the glowing green eyes and shock of white hair fluttering in a breeze that isn’t there. 

“Then why are you stalkin’ us?” Static challenges.

“I wouldn’t say ‘stalk,’” the guy replies, defensive. “I’ve just never seen any other superheroes before. I was curious, that’s all.”

“I guess you don’t watch the news much,” Gear says, unimpressed. “You can go a day without hearing about a super making headlines somewhere.”

The kid’s grin turns uneasy. “I’m, uh, not actually from around here. Superheroes are a bit thin on the ground, where I’m from.”

“And where’s that, the North Pole?” Static asks.

The kid rolls his eyes. “Through an interdimensional rift in space four blocks from here. Hang a right past the Lovecraft reference and straight on ‘til morning.”

Static and Gear share an exasperated look.

“Look, kid,” Gear begins heatedly, only to be cut off.

“Oh no, no fair. You guys look like you’re still in high school too, so cut it out with the ‘kid’ stuff. The name is Phantom.”

Gear huffs. “Fine, Phantom. Point is we appreciate the help. You’re doing good work. But the superhero thing’s dangerous. You can’t just, y’know, jump into it.”

As if the two of them hadn’t done just that. But, y’know. It felt right to warn the guy, at least.

“It’s not a matter of ‘if’ you’ll get hurt if you stick with it,” Static adds. “And, okay, you might be new in town, so maybe you don’t know, but the two of us have got Dakota covered just fine.”

Phantom rolls his eyes, bouncing into the air. Gravity really doesn’t pay him any mind at all. How does he fly? Telekinesis? He does it like he’s so used to it the switch from standing to hovering is as natural as breathing. “Trust me, this city’s a walk in the park compared to what I deal with. Forgive me for seeing a chance to lend a hand to a couple of _kids_ who clearly needed the help.”

“Now wait a minute—”

He drifts higher. “Oh, and by the way, there’s a guy calling himself Hotstreak waiting for you on ice by the community center. You’re _welcome.”_

“Wait—!”

But he blinks out of sight just like his name would suggest he could. There’s a pause as they both stare stupidly at thin air, then Gear swears. “‘On _ice?’_ Don’t tell me he’s got ice powers too.”

Phantom does, in fact, have ice powers too. Talk about overkill.

* * *

The sixth time Phantom makes an appearance, Virgil Hawkins is eating dinner with his dad and sister. He happens to glance out the window only to see a pair of neon green eyes staring back at him. Virgil drops his glass, yelping when milk splashes his mostly empty plate and spills into his lap.

“What’s the matter with you?” His sister asks.

“Uh. I—nothing! Nothing at all! I just—remembered that I, uh. Book report! I left my book report at Richie’s and I need to go get it!”

“Can’t it wait until school tomorrow?” His dad asks.

“No—no, it can’t, because I, uh, I still need to type it up and—and it’s due first period!” 

He runs out of the kitchen and out the front door before either of them can yell at him to clean up the mess he’d made. He stands on the stoop, panting and trying not to panic, and Phantom swoops into view upside down with that smug grin on his face again.

“Well hey there, sparky,” he says.

Virgil thinks he maybe has a heart attack, a little bit, before he finds the strength to speak. “You’ve gotta be kidding me!” He yells in a furious stage whisper, grabbing the kid out of the air to drag him closer. “The first rule of superheroes is minding the secret identity thing, especially around family, and you just blew that right out of the water!”

Virgil’s hand goes briefly numb and Phantom slips out of his grasp. “I wouldn’t say ‘just,’” he replies, looking guilty.

Virgil’s gonna strangle him, he really is. “How long have you known who I am?”

“Wwwwwell, a couple weeks back I saw local heroes Static and Gear walk into an abandoned gas station and two normal teenagers walk out. I don’t know your real names and I didn’t know you lived here, I swear. I was just flying by and recognized your hair out of the corner of my eye. I swear,” he repeats hastily at Virgil’s murderous expression.

Virgil counts to five, then back down again, and is still just as pissed. “Fine. Okay. C’mon.”

He starts walking towards Richie’s house, because no way is he doing this on his own. Behind him Phantom asks, “Uh, where are you going?”

“We are going to R—Gear’s place. The three of us are gonna sort this out, and don’t you even _think_ of pulling another one of your disappearing acts to get out of it!”

Phantom scoffs. “Oh yeah, because I’m so inconspicuous otherwise. Here, hold still.” He grabs Virgil’s shoulder and a chill washes over him. He startles, trying to pull away, but Phantom may as well have steel rebar for bones. Virgil looks down and yelps even louder than when he’d spilled milk all over himself; the ground has fallen away without even a rusty, trusty trash can lid underfoot. And speaking of feet, where _are_ his feet?

_“Augh,_ what? Whoa, _no,_ let me go!”

“Quit squirming.”

Oh, no. He’s not getting the evil grunt orders fifty feet in the air. He grabs the hand he can’t see and sends a warning bolt. Phantom grunts, twitching. 

_“Augh,_ easy sparky! Which way is Gear’s house?”

“How is this _less_ inconspicuous you maniac? Put me down—and don’t drop me!”

“Oh, for—you’re invisible right now.” He looks up and there’s nobody above him, but he can hear Phantom all the same. “I pulled a disappearing act and brought you along. Seriously, man, I know I’ve been goofing off and setting you on edge, but I really didn’t mean to spy. You wanna talk to Gear about the blown cover thing—I really don’t know your names still, by the way—and I wanna come to an agreement.”

Virgil sighs. These bang babies all gotta stop being so crazy. But hey, at least this one doesn’t seem like he’s about to rob any banks. “Hang a right at this light.”

* * *

It is officially too weird to watch your own body reappear before your own eyes. Virgil shudders.

“First time with invisibility?” Phantom waggles his eyebrows. “How do you feel?”

“...Tingly. Warn me before you do that again, alright?”

“You just gave me blanket permission to do it again basically whenever, you realize that, right?” 

“Wh—I did not!”

Phantom rolls his eyes and phases through the roof. Seriously, there’s _got_ to be a limit to how many spooky ooky poltergeist powers a guy can have, right? A moment later Virgil hears Richie yowling, and Phantom reappears with Richie in tow. He sets Richie down, gentle as you please, then promptly _explodes._

Virgil recoils, blinking white light out of his vision. When he can see clearly again, Phantom is gone and there’s a regular teenager standing in his place, black-haired and fresh out of glowing green eyes. One forearm is bandaged from wrist to elbow.

“Wh- _what?”_ Richie asks for the both of them.

The kid smiles, waving his uninjured hand. “Danny Fenton. It’s nice to see you without the visor.”

* * *

Turns out, Danny wasn’t kidding about being from a different dimension. He shows them the door he pops in and out of and everything. It’s an emergency exit of an old theater downtown, perfectly normal to Virgil’s eyes. Richie opens it. Rusty hinges squeal and Virgil can glimpse the vague suggestion of chairs in the dark.

“It only works if you’re focusing on the Ghost Zone,” Danny says.

“The what now?”

Richie shakes his head. “Oh no, no way. _Please_ don’t tell me I’m talking to a dead guy.”

Danny laughs. “Nah, I’m basically as normal as either of you when I’m like this.”

Considering Virgil can do exactly as much damage as he can wearing his superhero gear, that’s not exactly _comforting._

Danny nudges Richie aside, shuts the door and opens it up again. Just like that the theater’s interior is _gone._ There’s a hole in the world instead, bleeding radioactive green into the alleyway. There are hundreds—no, _thousands—_ of violet doors floating in a green void that twists in dizzying shapes before his eyes. There’s no ground, no sky, it goes on forever in all directions.

“That—” Richie swallows. _“That’s_ where you’re from?”

Danny shuts the door. Virgil tries to ignore the relief that makes jelly out of his knees, but _dang,_ that really needed a better warning. “No, of course not. I’m from Earth, same as you. Just a, well, a slightly different one, I guess. A parallel one. That place is where ghosts come from. I only ended up here by mistake.”

“Take a left at the Lovecraft reference?” Virgil asks, rubbing his eyes. 

“Ha, pretty much. I was trying to escape the Lovecraft reference. That’s, uh, not what it’s name probably is? My friend Sam called it that and I can’t understand it, so, that’s kind of stuck. It’s got enough teeth to deserve being called ‘Lovecraft reference,’ anyway.”

“Sam?” Richie asks. “Is that someone else, uh, on your team?”

“It’s not really a team. She doesn’t have super powers or anything, if that’s what you mean.”

“That’s right, you said superheroes are thin on the ground where you’re from,” Virgil says. “So I guess it’s just you dealing with the big and toothy?” 

“Basically, yeah. Not a lot of opportunity to do what I did to get my powers.”

“What’d you—”

Danny holds up both hands. “Nope, nuh-uh. You’ve got your secrets, I’ve got mine.”

* * *

The seventh time they see Phantom, they finally see him in proper action. Ebon’s gang has struck a bank—Virgil’s big mouth and bad luck strikes a home run, as usual—and by the time Static and Gear arrive on the scene they’ve stolen a truck and are two blocks from the bank. Talon is flying overhead, keeping an eye out for cops or goody-good superheroes, while the rest of the gang’s inside.

They don’t stop to see who’s hurt. They’d passed an ambulance on the way, and it’s not like either of them are good for more than getting the injured to emergency care. They take chase, and the armored truck doesn’t make it another block before Gear’s knocked Talon out of the sky and Static has netted the truck in a web of electricity. It’s _heavy_ though, too heavy for him to do more than keep its tires squealing in place and hoping Gear can gimmick up something to slow it down a little more. Ebon’s smart though. He’s not gonna pick a fight here, and Static will burn himself out long before the tires do.

_“Gear!”_ He yells desperately.

“Working on it!”

But it’s _Phantom_ that swoops in from nowhere, soaring down in front of the truck. He, _impossibly,_ lifts the wheels off the street one-handed. It’s enough help to let Static focus his attention on popping the wheels off before releasing his net. He sinks to his knees, disc wobbling dangerously beneath him, catching his breath.

“I—hate—armored trucks,” he wheezes.

“Static!” Phantom calls out, startled, which means breaktime is over. He stretches his hand out and ties Shiv up with a nearby stop sign before he gets to his feet again. Phantom’s rushed off to help Gear with Talon who’s back in the air, which just leaves Ebon to Static.

Ebon slides out of the truck, an inky, glowering smear. “Who’s the new guy?”

“Friend from out of town. Why, you feelin’ like we’re not bondin’ like we used to?”

Ebon doesn’t reply, just slaps Static away. The air gets knocked out of him and he lands in a sprawl halfway down the street. Before he can recover he hears Talon scream. He slams his hands to his ears reflexively, but luckily she wasn’t aiming at him. Not so luckily, Gear and Phantom hit asphalt a few yards away.

“You okay?” Static calls out.

“I _hate_ when she does that,” Gear complains too loudly, shaking his head like a dog and looking nauseous. Yeah, Static hates it too. He’d take getting slapped around by Ebon over having his hearing scrambled any day. 

Phantom springs up quicker than either of them, grinning madly. “She wants a screaming match, huh?” 

Gear looks as aggrieved as Static feels. “Do _not_ tell me you can do that too.”

Phantom’s grin widens, eyes blazing, as Talon rejoins Ebon and Shiv at the armored truck. Shiv must’ve cut himself free of the stop sign at some point. Static makes a mental note to use two stop signs next time. The three of them are hauling bags out of the back, clearly planning on Ebon’s easy getaway trick to get at least some of the cash they’d stolen.

Static gets to his feet, zapping his disc underfoot again as he considers a half dozen strategies to take them out and not liking any of them. Ebon’s always been too slippery; it’s likely he’ll get away no matter what—

A hand claps down on his shoulder. 

“Stay behind me,” Phantom says.

“What are you—”

But there’s no time to finish asking what because Phantom takes a deep breath and _wails._ There’s waves of concentric neon green energy bursting from his mouth, radiating out and down to Ebon’s gang. The armored car, down two tires, goes shrieking and sparking down the street. Two parked cars follow after, their windows shattering, their frames buckling. Ebon, Talon, and Shiv don’t even have time to grab at their ears; they go down like bowling pins, and don’t get up again.

The click of Phantom’s teeth when he finally stops wailing seems awfully loud. Static feels like he just walked out of a concert he’d been too near the speakers at for; his ears are ringing, his hands and feet are tingling, and his chest hurts vaguely. He swallows, looks back at Gear who’s just shaking his head a little. He looks at Phantom; the kid’s got beads of green on his forehead and he’s breathing hard.

“Sorry,” his voice cracks a little, “That one’s kinda hard to put a lid on.”

* * *

After sorting out things with the police—which Phantom vanished for, literally—they invite him back to the gas station for what is, in essence, dinner and an interrogation. Richie declares he’s had enough surprises and Virgil agrees. So they stop to grab a couple of pizzas and manhandle Danny to the gas station. Danny lets himself be manhandled with no shortage of eye rolling.

“Sit,” Richie orders, shoving a paper plate laden with three slices of pepperoni into Danny’s hands. _“Explain.”_

Danny sits obediently, raising his eyebrows like he’s trying not to grin. “Uh, explain what?”

“You! Your ridiculous collection of powers, where you come from, why you’re not strutting around your weird parallel Earth or whatever as Grand High Emperor of—of everything!”

Danny can’t help the grin. Virgil’s hiding one behind a can of soda too though, so he can’t judge. “Grand High—what? Do you have one of those here?”

_“Danny.”_

“C’mon. We agreed on no details, didn’t we? This wouldn’t even be a conversation we’d have if you were the ones coming to my city.”

“We agreed to that when it seemed like you were just another souped up Bang Baby,” Virgil cuts in, “but this _is_ getting ridiculous. I’m not sure I like the idea of Superman’s ghost charging through Dakota any time he feels like it, especially since supers tend to bring _their_ problems along with ‘em.”

“If you want me gone, I’ll leave. I was just trying to give you guys a hand when things were slow in Am—my city.”

“We never asked your overpowered butt for help in the first place!” Richie snaps.

Danny opens his mouth to snap something back but his phone goes off instead. He glares at them both as he pulls it out of his jeans pocket, flipping it open. His eyes widen at whatever the text reads, he fires off a quick reply, then drops his uneaten pizza on the table. “Look, here I am, going. All right?”

“Trouble in paradise?” Virgil quips.

Danny ignores it, but stops halfway to the door to look back over his shoulder. His eyes are bright green, which Virgil’s learning means more trouble than it’s worth. “You know what? How about you come visit Amity Park with me?”

* * *

The Ghost Zone is just as dizzying as Static thought it would be, and in no time at all he’s hopelessly lost and he has a monster of a headache. It’s like he’d put his face right up against a neon sign no matter where he looks; just bright green smears and the odd clutter of purple doors. “Man, you sure you’re not lost?”

Phantom throws a grin over his shoulder. “Relax, I’ve done this plenty of times.”

“IS it even safe for, uh, _regular_ people to be here?” Richie asks nervously. “I’m getting some _bizarre_ readings here that Backpack can’t make heads or tails of. I feel like I should have nabbed a HAZMAT suit too.”

“My parents and friends have been in and out of the Ghost Zone dozens of times, and they’re totally fine.”

“Radiation poisoning can take decades to affect people,” Gear points out.

“Eh, so maybe they’ll glow in the dark or something twenty years from now. Ectology is kind of in its infancy. Anyway, we’re here.”

There’s a circular hole of swirling green, lighter than the fog around them and suspended in a solid looking riveted steel frame. Phantom holds up one hand to stop them, sticking his head through. “We’re good,” he says when he’s popped back out. “C’mon.”

Gear and Static share one last nervous look before following after.

They find themselves in some kind of high-tech basement done all out in sleek chrome, like a mad scientist’s lab out of a Saturday morning cartoon. There are beakers and flasks bubbling with syrupy neon green stuff, barrels with CAUTION stamped on the sides, and the kind of tables that wouldn’t look out of place in a flashy investigation show morgue. Static breaks out in goosebumps and can’t even pretend to play it off on it being a little chilly in here. 

“My parents built the Ghost Portal,” Phantom says, pointing back at the circle of green light still swirling behind them. “But I’m the one who made it work.”

Seeing the Portal on this side makes Gear’s breath hitch, and Static breathes out a stunned, _“Whoa.”_ It’s an octagon framed by fat black and yellow caution stripes, easily fifteen feet in diameter. The Portal itself is identical to how it appeared on the Ghost Zone’s side, a constant dizzying swirl of toxic greens staining the enormous lab like some kind of mutant aquarium.

“Is this thing open all the time?” Gear stutters. “How is your family not dead? Heck, the whole _city?_ This thing’s pouring out energy on a—I need to invent a new _scale_ to quantify these readings just so I can make sense of them!”

Phantom laughs, grabbing a chrome cylinder glittering with green designs.. “Don’t worry about it, seriously. My mom would know if it was, like, properly dangerous. Now c’mon, I want you to meet a regular of mine.”

* * *

Two more teenagers are waiting for them outside an evacuated post office. The girl, white with a distinctly Goth taste in clothes, gives Phantom a look that plainly states she thinks he’s nuts. “You didn’t mention you’d be bringing them through,” she says flatly.

The guy, black with thick-rimmed glasses and dressed like he can’t decide if he’s going for ‘frequents Starbucks’ or ‘military surplus’, rolls his eyes and waves. “Hi, I’m Tucker. That’s Sam. Don’t mind her, she’s just pissed the Box Ghost got the jump on her.”

“The one time I leave the house without a Thermos,” she huffs, crossing her arms.

“Sorry about the wait.” Phantom says. “Guys, this is Static and Gear.”

“Charmed,” Static says automatically. Gear just grunts.

“Don’t need three guesses to guess who,” Tucker grins. “We can catch up later. You wanna do the honors, Danny?”

“Nah.” Phantom looks at Static and Gear, looking worryingly pleased. “I helped you out with the, what’s it, Ebon and Friends. Why don’t you take a crack at one of mine?”


End file.
